After what seemed like an eternity of suffering, the Virtus.pro competitive CS:GO team has been let go. Some of the players in the current roster had been playing for longer than CS:GO esports had been alive, so it’s a shame to see, but almost inevitable.
In a new blog post, Virtus.pro wrote on their website that “Due to latest tournament performance our CS:GO team will cease any competitive activities until further notice”. Virtus.pro also went on to state that they will announce their next steps by the end of the year.
Whilst the news post by Virtus.pro didn’t make it clear what the organization’s future plans were, a comment from Roman Dvoryankin, Virtus.pro general manager, made it quite clear.
“After London Major we were quite optimistic about the potential of the current lineup. Unfortunately, our expectations were not met. The long term strategy for us is to build a competitive team around young players and we will follow it while making decisions. I’d like to ask our fans to be supportive in the next couple of weeks”.
With Pasha and NEO now in their 30s, it makes sense. Virtus.pro are looking to reignite their roster with fresh new talent. It’s no secret that an esports player’s career will peak at a younger age where their reflexes and critical thinking ability may be more in tune. Thankfully, there is plenty of excellent talent within the Polish CS:GO scene, so Virtus.pro won’t need to look far. In fact, some of VP’s current roster deserves another chance for the future.
MICHU, a fairly new addition to the VP team has proven to be a great entry fragger, and at 22 years old, he has plenty of potential ahead of him. Snatchie, 20, is another player that has held on to the Virtus.pro name badge for a very short time, and even more recently, 24 year old Morelz has been given a shot as a stand-in. Failing that, there’s some excellent talent in teams like AGO and Kinguin. Young AGO stars GruBy and Furlan have shown amazing potential so far, for example.
Whether or not these players will be willing to give up their current positions is yet to be seen, but we already know that Virtus.pro has seen enough success in other esports titles for money to not be a problem. In fact, VP’s Dota 2 team won the recent Kuala Lumpur Major, as well as the Bucharest Major and two ESL One events during 2018. To put it into perspective, the VP CS:GO team was struggling to even qualify for majors and big events this year.
What are your thoughts on the current Virtus.pro roster leaving the server for the very last time? Is it time for Pashabiceps and NEO to finally say goodbye to playing competitively? Or, will they try to fight through on a new roster like their long-lasting teammates Taz has with joining Kinguin. It makes more sense that these players may say goodbye for good, but perhaps they’ll still stick around in the esports community by taking on another role. Both players have enough experience to be excellent casters or coaches.
